Seduced by Sunday (37 page)

“Lousy shot. Alonzo was a lousy shot.” She smiled and winced.

The tension in Val’s body dropped, making his knees buckle.

Margaret kept hold.

“
Ti amo, cara.
I thought I lost you.” He placed his lips on her forehead, the only part of her face that didn’t appear hurt.

New tears formed in Margaret’s eyes. “What about Gabi?”

Val placed his palm on her cheek. “In the hospital. Alive.”

It was Margaret’s turn to slump against him.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Val said.

When Margaret took a few steps, he noticed the cut on her leg. Without words, he lifted her in his arms and carried her.

Margaret let him.

Chapter Thirty

Meg sat at Gabi’s bedside the week she was in the ICU, and pestered every nurse and doctor taking care of her for the entire time she was in the hospital.

Mrs. Masini brought food daily and stayed when she could. But seeing her daughter broken took its toll on the woman. Seemed everyone blamed themselves for Alonzo’s deception.

It was hardest on Val. He couldn’t stop apologizing to Gabi, no matter how often she told him it wasn’t his fault. At night, when Meg returned to the hotel room she’d called home for two weeks, she would often find Val in her bed, waiting for her.

The day before Gabi’s discharge, she sat in a chair overlooking Miami. Her silence was a direct contrast to her previous personality. The therapists said it would take some time for her to trust again, some time for her heart to heal.

Meg forced a smile on her face when she walked into the private room and shut the door. The tray of uneaten food sat to the side. Gabi had lost ten pounds and wasn’t putting them back on.

She survived Alonzo only to become an empty shell.

Meg placed a designer duffle bag on the bed and focused on the positive. “It looks like you’re going home tomorrow.”

Gabi moved her gaze from the window to the hands resting in her lap. “That’s what the doctor said.”

“I brought a bag to help you pack your things.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

Meg pulled a chair closer and lowered her voice. “How are you feeling today?”

It took a full minute before Gabi answered. “Old.” She met Meg’s eyes, the hurt so deep in her gaze it felt like a knife in Meg’s heart. “I feel old, Meg.”

In the two weeks it took for Gabi to kick her brief addiction, none of them had actually discussed what had happened. Papers had arrived on the island confirming that Alonzo did in fact marry Gabi while at sea. When Val and Meg asked the doctors about her physical condition, they said she was stable, or improving . . . no details were given. When asked, the doctors told them Gabi didn’t want her condition announced to her family. In an effort to give her the privacy she obviously needed, Meg didn’t ask, and Gabi didn’t tell.

“I can’t go back to the island,” she said without preamble.

Meg’s head scrambled. If not the island . . . to her family . . .

“I can’t have everyone staring at me, wondering . . . asking questions.”

“That would suck.”

Was that a smile on Gabi’s lips? Good God, Meg hoped so.

“Where do you want to go?”

“Someplace to start over.” She stood, the nightgown she’d worn for a week engulfed her tiny frame. “Someplace where I can scrub his image from my head. Where I can learn to respect myself again.”

Meg wanted desperately to tell Gabi that she didn’t need to prove anything. Yet, apparently, she did . . . if only to herself.

“A place where you can grab hold of your life and take charge.”

Gabi nodded. “Yes.”

Meg thought of the strong women in her life. Sam had built her business in the ashes of her torn-up family. Eliza lost her parents when she was young, survived it. Each of them had a crossroads in their lives and rose above adversity to come out on top.

“Come with me.”

Gabi blinked.

“To California. We’ll have to check with Sam about a job. We can always use help with Alliance.”

Some of the pain in Gabi’s eyes faded. “A job?”

“An occupation. Supporting yourself is empowering. You’ll be so busy you won’t have time to look out the window and dwell.”

“The social worker said I needed to face what happened in order to overcome it.”

Meg nodded. “And you will. In the meantime, you need to take control.”

“A job.”

Meg stood and took her friend’s hand. “A new life.”

Gabi took hold of Meg’s hand and squeezed.

And smiled.

That night, Meg packed her bags and found it was her time to stare out a high-rise window and debate her life.

What did her life even look like anymore? She’d spent over a month of her life buried in Val and his family. Kidnapping, drugs . . . bootleg wine. Everything had changed, and outside of the obvious, Meg couldn’t completely tell why.

Watching the light slowly fill Gabi’s eyes again reminded Meg that life was meant to be lived. The entire situation with Alonzo, Stephan . . . the drugs, could have had a fatal turn. As it was, the
DEA seized the rest of the drugs in Val’s cellars. Two additional staff members had been flushed out and charges were brought against them. Stephan would spend a significant time in jail, and if he ever managed to get out, he’d most likely be a target for the Mexican drug runner who was still out there.

Then there was Alonzo. The man was barely conscious and half-dead when the Coast Guard fished him from the water. Meg held some satisfaction to know that Val shoved a fist into the man’s wounds, made him hurt just a little more. He’d made it into surgery, but the amount of holes from Rick, Neil, and at least two others from aboard one of the Coast Guard’s ships were simply too much for the ass to handle. He still clung to life, with little chance of breathing off a ventilator.

There weren’t many people that Meg truly wanted dead . . . but Alonzo was one of them.

He’d shattered Gabi, and it was going to take a long time to bring her back to the smiling, happy woman she was only a month ago.

The door to her room clicked and Val walked inside. His jacket was on his arm, his tie loose around his neck. He’d been burning daylight hours with rehiring staff, building his virtual defensive walls, and balancing his sister, mother . . . and even Meg.

“Hey,” she managed.

“Hey.” Val dropped his jacket on the bed and crossed the room. He pulled her into his arms and held her. He did that a lot, just held her as if she were the most precious thing in the world.

“I-I packed.”

“I don’t want to think of you leaving.”

“My flight is at noon.” The lump in her throat made her choke. She wasn’t an emotional sap, so why was she on the verge of crying?

He drew away and kissed her forehead. “
Ti amo, bella.
We’ll figure this out.”

A sad smile emerged with his soft words. She never asked what they meant, just thought they were endearing, and from the tone, she felt it, too.

“Gabi is coming with me.”

At first, Val held his breath . . . then he sighed and pulled her onto the loveseat. “Is that smart? Shouldn’t she be with her mother?”

Meg held his hand, saw the pain in his eyes. “She needs to heal, Val. The island will be a reminder of him . . . of everything. In time, maybe that will change. A change of scenery, people. She needs to control her destiny and not be dependent on anyone other than herself now.”

Val didn’t appear convinced.

“She smiled today. After she made the decision to move away. She’ll stay with me. Sam already offered her a job. I think it’s the right move.”

“I want to argue, but think you might be right.”

“She can always come back, if I’m not,” Meg said.

He tilted his head, ran a hand over the five o’clock shadow that never seemed to completely go away since she’d told him she liked the look. He really was one of the most beautiful men she’d ever feasted her eyes on. Not seeing him daily was truly going to suck. Her heart broke a little more as the hours ticked down to her departure.

“Damn it, Val. I’m going to miss you.” She slapped a playful hand on his chest.

He captured it and kissed her fingers. “We might be apart by miles, but not here.” He tapped their joined hands to his chest.

“I don’t do long-distance relationships.” She swiped the moisture under her eyes. Damn mascara was going to make her look like a zombie.

Val chuckled. “You don’t do sleepovers either.”

She rolled her eyes. Her bed hadn’t been lonely since Italy.

“Come here,” he said, drawing her close. His head dipped to hers and his lips chased away her tears.

He tasted her, slowly, burning the memory of his kiss deep in her soul. Meg opened to him, familiar with the dance of their tongues, and languished in his kiss until he stole her breath.

The soft scrape of his beard left a path of want down her chin, her neck. After only a few weeks, the man knew her body better than any other man cared to explore. The spot behind her ear, the space between her collarbone, the brush of his fingers over her breasts right before he sucked one into his mouth.

He made love to her slowly, drawing her to the bed and laying her down and starting all over again. Head to toe, with plenty of stops in between. When he moved into her, with her, and pushed them both to the point where passion met the stars and flew on past, Meg realized one thing . . . she loved him.

Desperately.

Completely.

Telling him would just make it harder to leave. Instead, she felt the tears gather again, listened to Val say beautiful things in a language she didn’t understand, and made love to him until the early morning hours.

They kept quiet the next morning, made love in the shower one last time, dressed, and went to the hospital to gather Gabi and say good-bye.

Val held her hand, kept telling her they were going to be fine . . .

Meg didn’t see it. His life was in Florida, and hers was an entire country away.

Gabi woke before the sun. The nurse made her rounds and removed all the needles and medications from Gabi’s room.

She showered, dressed, and waited for the doctor’s last visit. She hurt, still. Two weeks and her body had aged ten years.

Alonzo had drugged her. The pills he told her were aspirin weren’t. The strong opiates left her with headaches. The alcohol he’d given her made it worse. Then the pain had gotten better. She remembered her wedding . . . how Alonzo had constructed the whole thing. She’d been high, even then, but she couldn’t say she didn’t know what she was doing. And that was the biggest betrayal of all. After that, everything was a blur. The first time the needle had pierced her skin the euphoria had been instant. She remembered, briefly, that it wasn’t right. Nothing worked against pain like that. Nothing legal, in any event. He had her out on the ocean for a week. She remembered two days of it.

Once she arrived in the hospital, all she did was beg for more drugs. The staff had to restrain her, give her weaker drugs until she could be pulled off them completely. She was humiliated, damaged.

Gabi shook the thoughts from her head, realized she wasn’t alone in the room. “Dr. Hoyt. I’m sorry . . .” she waved a hand in the air.

“Distracted. It’s OK, Gabi. I wanted to check on you before you left.”